


A Draught of Bitter Safflina

by DinosaurTheology



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Abortion, Angst, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Friendship, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Love, Mental Anguish, Pregnancy, Psychological Drama, True Love, Unplanned Pregnancy, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-07-28 14:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16243448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinosaurTheology/pseuds/DinosaurTheology
Summary: Zelda is under stress. She visits an ancient Gerudo sage to seek an answer. Things do not proceed as planned. Strange things happen in the desert moonlight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So... this one was a tough, sensitive story to write. I hope people enjoy reading it. I LOVE the relationship between Urbosa and Zelda, the BOTW Gerudo in general, really. I wanted to tie an older piece of their mythos in here, too, along with various tropes related to the Witch as she stands in culture, folklore and history.

The tides of battle ebbed and flowed across the land of Hyrule but, in the main, had been kind to the forces of light. Driven onward by sword and trident, hammer and arrow, they had riven the land of the calamity’s forces and forced the beast back into the ruins of an ancient palace in the network of caves beneath Spectacle Rock. 

The rock had lain uninhabited for centuries, perhaps millenia. Zelda knew this because she, herself, had examined the daily pottery and refused heaps of those long dead people on her Sheikah slate. Now bokoblins, moblins and other creatures even less savory than these teemed upon the dust of the unfortunate former denizens’ bones and the calamity itself, the demon known as Ganon, licked its wounds and prepared for one final salle against its enemies. This was the battle that she feared would end in bitter tears for the champions of good and all of Hyrule’s free peoples.

But this was not that story.

“Little bird.” A contralto voice, strong and familiar, nudged against the fog that Nayru’s wisdom laid on her when it visited. “Can you hear me, sweetling?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I can. Is something wrong?”

“I hope not,” she said. “You seemed… absent… again.”

“It’s what happens when the wisdom visits me,” she said. “I see things, or see things that might be at least. Pasts and futures can convene to force the present away from me.”

“I can see how pasts might be preferable to the… complexity of this possible present, or many of the futures that may arise from it,” Urbosa said. “How long has it been?”

“Two moons,” she said. “I only just realized. It is hard to think of something like that on the campaign trail.”

Urbosa chuckled. “It is how my people track how long our campaigns last, little bird.”

“Really? My father’s army track their progress by the turning of the moon.”

“That is not a bad way,” Urbosa said, “and is similar in many regards. But Gerudo march, at times, where neither sun nor moon shines. The forces of our shame have been known to flee us far into the deeps of the world.”

Zelda shivered, remembered stories of the moldorm, lamnola and geldarm that Urbosa had told her. She said, again, “Two moons. How could I have been so foolish, Urbosa?”

She shrugged. “When voe and vai wind together, especially in a time when their fears and passions run elsewise high, sensibility is often a casualty earlier than even our vanguard.”

“I’m sure that I will bleed tomorrow,” she said. “I will bleed tomorrow and tell you and feel an utter little idiot for even thinking such a thing might have happened.”

“That is a possible outcome, my love,” she said, “but there are others, too. You know this. You have seen them through the lens of Nayru’s wisdom.”

“I have,” she said. “Oh, I have. But even one cursed with wisdom may hold a fool’s hope, may she not?”

“She may. I deign to allow it, so says Urbosa of the Gerudo, and in this desert my rule is as law.”

Zelda noticed how the perfect, plum lips curled back away from sharp teeth. “You’re mocking me, aren’t you? That’s not kind, my dearest.”

“I am a wolf of the desert, my love,” she said, “a sister to the wasteland coyote. Kindness is not my strength.”

“And foresight is not mine,” Zelda said, bitterly. “A fine avatar for wisdom I am!”

“As I said before, where voe, vai and their mixing into one flesh is concerned we are all made fools, no matter how wise.” She waited a long moment before saying more. “Does he know?”

“No,” she said. “By the goddess, no.”

“A pity.” Urbosa shooed a fly away from her face. Here even on Naboris’ high balcony they swarmed! “He would be pleased. I can only imagine his sweet, stupid little face.”

“I can’t tell him,” she said. “Especially since even I don’t know yet. I cannot afford to distract him. He is like a beast, sweet Urbosa.”

“Indeed,” she said. “Your predicament tells me as much.”

She blushed a deeper red than the poppies wound into her hair. “That is not what I meant.”

“I know, sweetling,” the older woman said. “Indulge my teasing, if you will.” She frowned. “You raise a good point. To distract him, even with joyful news, would be… unwise at this juncture. Does anyone know? Among our Inner Circle?”

“By the goddess no, again. Daruk is a goron. They do not… understand such things. They are not as we are, after all, and though I cannot imagine a more steadfast soul he is… not among the strongest of thinkers.”

“What he understands or does not might surprise you, little bird. There are depths to our powerful friend that you have not seen. It does not matter. What of the others?”

“I have not told Revali. I’m not close to him like Link is--to tell him would be as good as telling Link, I feel--and besides… he is so fierce. All the Rito seem so fierce. Sometimes…” She turned her face away from Urbosa. “Sometimes he frightens me. All his people do.”

“That’s not charitable, my dove,” Urbosa said. “They are our friends and allies, after all. Who, if not for Revali, could fly Medoh and scour the skies of those who would haunt us?”

“I did not say it was charitable,” Zelda said. She felt irritation building. “Nor did I say it was wise. I cannot help how I feel, though. It’s from something that happened when I was a child. A bird…”

“Pecked you, yes, as you lay in your cradle in the palace garden. Do not forget that I knew your mother twice again as long as you have lived. Do you still think it was some scion of calamity come to slay you as a babe?”

“I never really believed that--not really--but when I was but a little thing, well, it seemed to make sense, eh?”

“What makes more sense is that it was a bird being a bird, little bird,” she said. “What of Mipha?”

“Oh, I cannot. I could never.”

“Why?”

“I, Urbosa… I--she loves him, don’t you know?”

“And you don’t?”

“I do but… she plans to marry him, to ask for his hand as soon as all of this is over. She has woven the scale shirt for him and everything. I cannot do this to her, to tear her heart like this while we need her to risk her life piloting Ruta. And even if we didn’t… how could I be so cruel?”

“You could never be that, my love,” she said. “You could never. Now come to me and lay your head upon my lap. We will figure out what to do or, failing that, we will wallow in our confusion together. “

She went to her and nestled in the Gerudo woman’s strong arms. Little was solved but the princess slept and the world always looks brighter when we have slept.


	2. Chapter 2

A day hence, no closer to bleeding or finding an answer, Zelda found herself walking an ill trodden, treacherous path deep within the Gerudo Highlands. It cut up and across Hemaar’s Descent, on the terraced hills of Mythaphi’s Peak. The path zigged where it should have zagged, doubled back upon itself more than once and crawled up or down rock faces that were nigh unto sheer and, after she had passed the same tangled, scrubby brush four times, she began to suspect that means apart from the region’s naturally rugged terrain might have been working against her.

Finally, right before dusk, right before giving into despair and weeping on the sharp rocks, Zelda found a roughly hewn wooden door. Old, curious Gerudo characters were painted onto it with an old woman’s wavering hand. She recognized those characters, the three proper names they represented, and suppressed a shudder before knocking.

Two knocks with no answer. She almost gave up, felt a quake in her soul when she did not, and knocked again. A high, shrieking voice answered her, “Come in, little bird. We shan’t eat you.   
There’s not enough meat on you to make a meal.”

Zelda shuddered at how this stranger used Urbosa’s affectionate name for her but… perhaps it was but a common Gerudo pet name for a young vai? She didn’t know, could not turn back because of such a thing now. She stepped inside the threshold with a hesistant tread, felt the creeping age, oppressive darkness and pure, reality queering power of the place wash across her.

An old woman, the oldest Zelda had ever seen, sat on a stool in the corner. “Ooh,” she crooned. “Oh. Koume, look. Isn’t that the sweetest little dove you’ve ever seen?”

Another crone, this one perhaps even older than the first, peeped over the huge, black cast iron pot she had been stirring. “Oh, yes, Kotake. And look! She how she blushes.”

Zelda realized that she had, struggled against it and realized, all the same, that it was impossible. The first old woman said, “What could it be that brings such a sweet creature to hags like us, Koume?”

“What is it always, Kotake? Does the story ever change or just the dress it wears?” She peered at Zelda with sharp, ophidian eyes that saw far, far too much. “Am I right, sweetling? How long has it been?”

“Too long,” she said. “More than two moons. How did you--”

“It is always the same,” Koume said. “As long as there are voe and vai it will always be the same, my love. The only question is this… have you the nerve for what you must do, if you would do it?”

“I… yes. I am no weakling. I will do what must be done.”

“A drought of bitter safflina, then,” Kotake said. “It will do what must be done.”

“I will bleed?”

“You will bleed, oh yes,” Koume said. “You will bleed and so much more with this ordeal.”

“We call it bitter not because of the taste,” Kotake said. “The draught is a bitter one indeed. The purging is violent. You may suffer a swelling of the belly, even a falling of the thigh. Have you seen that, little dove?”

“I…” Zelda thought back, again to her youth, when Urbosa had taken her to the pastures near her oasis estate and shown her mare in foal. You will love to see the new baby, she said, it will make you smile. And so soon after the death of her mother Zelda had needed something to make her smile.

Something had gone wrong, though, horribly wrong. She remembered the blood, the screaming, an agony that only Urbosa’s quick knife in the horse’s throat had quelled. She began to shudder uncontrollably, like a captive mouse, and only with heroic effort managed to bring herself under control. “I understand what you are saying. But even if the draught is a bitter one I must take it.”

“There is another way,” Koume said. “You will not suffer such a fate if you walk this path… and no life need be extinguished before the sun touches its face.”

“What is it?” Zelda said. 

Kotake grinned, narrowed her eyes. “Allow us to stand in your stead. We could do what you cannot, princess.”

Zelda stiffened. “How did you know…?”

“That you are the famous Zelda, princess of Hyrule, avatar of Nayru’s song of wisdom? How could you be anyone else? How could it belong to anyone else but Link, our bold champion?”

The atmosphere in the crones’ cave had grown dark indeed. Zelda had thought it dark before but that was but the murk of a spring evening compared to this. These shadows crept from the floo, the ceiling, cracks along the wall. They crawled across her face, into her ears, her nostrils.

Koume hopped from where she sat and, with claw like hands, grabbed the hem of Zelda’s shirt and jerked it up. She pressed a gnarled ear against the taut skin of her flat belly. “Oh,” she crooned, “oh. Kotake… he waxes strong.”

“He?” Kotake said. “He?”

“He!” Koume offered Zelda a toothless, predatory grin. “Let us stand in your stead, princess. We will solve your problem, all of your problems. We can hold him, feed him, raise him. A voe for the Gerudo. A king!”

“Yes,” Kotake said. “A king to flay alive that nasty chieftain of theirs and take his rightful place. A king…” She cast Zelda a sidelong glance. “A king to bind the calamity.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “You’re mad. You’re both mad. I will not do that to the Urbosa, to the Gerudo… to Hyrule. Get out of my way. Let me out of here.”

Koume did not relinquish her grip on Zelda’s wrist. The sharp, dirty nails dug into her soft flesh. “Do not be so hasty, little bird.” It had been mockery after all. Zelda knew this now. “One does not lightly seek the aid of Twinrova.”

“Leave us the little voe, the little king,” Kotake said, “or we will cut him from you.” She drew a wickedly sharp hooked knife. Koume, once again, jerked up the hem of Zelda’s shirt. A force she could not explain held her fast.

Thunder crashed outside. Zelda flinched, waited for the blade to slice into her belly, then realized… it had exploded not outside but of the cave but within! Kotake lay smoking on the cave floor, burned past recognition.

Koume shrieked at this and then at a huge, shadowy form that hurled itself across the cave. Another blade, longer than Kotake’s knife but no less suicidally sharp, flashed. The witch’s head fell to the floor, first, then her small body. Blood gouted from the ragged hole that had been her neck.

Urbosa dropped her sword and wrapped her arms around Zelda, squeezed tight enough to make her ribs creak. “Little bird,” she said, “little bird… how could you have been so stupid, my love? Why did you do such a foolish thing?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Do not apologize,” she said. “A princess must not be sorry, even when she has made a grave mistake.” Urbosa turned to kick Koume’s head across the floor.

Before her foot connected with it the head began to cackle. “Oh, Mistress Urbosa,” it sang, “how sweet that you have taken the poor little Hylian vai as your own daughter. No wonder that the mighty Gerudo have fallen to such a state!” Kotake laughed along with her sister. It came out as an awful, dry, crackling noise.

Urbosa did kick the head, now. Koume’s body crawled after it and, after a few seconds, Kotake followed. The cave’s atmosphere lightened, became that of a cavern again and not a hut in hell’s village. 

Zelda clung to Urbosa, as she had the night before, and wept. “What shall I do, Urbosa? What even can I do?”

“I don’t know, my princess,” she said, “but we must face it as the strong vai we are and not cringing supplicants before the feet of those… things.” She spat. “A curse on them, a thousand curses on all that they have done. Now…” She stretched the long muscles of her back and Zelda heard the bones there pop, remembered that Urbosa was almost twenty years her senior. “Now… let us walk out into the sun. Even the bitterest waters may be drunk best with her light on our face, yes?”

Zelda agreed. After this cave any darkness was too deep. They stepped into the sun to face a new day.


End file.
